The Soldier and the Sociopath
by johnlockhunter
Summary: 5 1 fic. Five times Lestrade saved John and one time Sherlock did it. Warning: Suicide Attempt


Lestrade pulled his car over to the side of the bridge. He really didn't want to get out. The rain was pouring down and it was nice and warm in his car.

He looked out his window through the rain at the silhouette of a man sitting on the bridge railing and reprimanded himself for even thinking something like that. This man obviously needed help and Lestrade could give it.

He got out of his car and headed for the man. He quietly walked up next to the man and leaned on the railing, looking out over the water and carefully not at the man next to him.

He saw the man turn his head to look at him and then turn back to look at the water below his feet. There was silence for a while.

"I guess you're going to tell me I shouldn't do this," the man said in a quiet voice.

Lestrade nodded and said, "Is it really worth it?"

The man continued to stare at the water below him for a while, but then answered.

"I'm really not sure."

Lestrade sat there with the man for a bit more and then said,

"Why?"

The man turned to look at him and Lestrade looked back.

The man was completely soaked. He had obviously been sitting there for a while. His sandy blond hair was plastered to his forehead and his coat was completely soaked through. But Lestrade was drawn to his eyes. They were a deep, sad blue.

"I was in the army," the man said. "Got shot."

He gestured toward the water for some reason Lestrade wasn't sure of.

"There's no…excitement anymore. Nothing to really live for. I don't even have a family to speak of."

Lestrade waited for more, but it never came. The man continued to watch him. Lestrade realised he was actually waiting to be convinced not to do this. He wanted to be told it wasn't worth it.

"I'll make a bet with you," Lestrade said.

The man gave him a questioning look.

"Get off of that railing, live out the next two weeks, look for that excitement. If you don't find any, you can come back here and think again."

For a second, Lestrade thought the man would refuse him, but then he swung his legs over the railing, landing on the correct side.

"All right then," he said.

Lestrade watched as the man limped off in the sheets of rain. He wasn't sure if he had said the right thing.

OoOoO

A week and half later, Sherlock Holmes showed up to a crime scene with a familiar looking man in tow. Lestrade didn't recognise him until the man froze, staring right at him. It was the man from the bridge. Sherlock introduced him as Dr. John Watson and Lestrade didn't say anything. He didn't miss the grateful look from the ex-soldier.

John became a regular installment in the crime scenes and at Sherlock's flat. Lestrade visited the bridge again a few times just in case, but no one was ever there.

A few months later and Lestrade didn't even associate the man at the bridge with the man who followed around Sherlock Holmes. That was, until the day he called Sherlock in for a case that he suspected wasn't the suicide it was meant to look like.

When Sherlock arrived, Lestrade debriefed him. He told Sherlock about how the man was ex-army, lived in a small flat, probably felt no purpose, but he also had a lot of gambling debts and that was what Lestrade was worried about.

Sherlock was in the middle of a sentence when Lestrade glanced over at John. The man was hunched in on himself and had his eyes fixed on the body. He looked trapped, and a little terrified.

Lestrade left Sherlock to his deductions and walked over to John.

"Hey, I'm feeling thirsty. There's a nice coffee shop across the street. Want to check it out?"

John tore his eyes from the body and nodded numbly at Lestrade. Lestrade took him by the elbow and led him outside. The second they were in the fresh air, John began to relax.

"Thanks," he whispered. "Now how about that coffee?"

OoOoO

It had been a few weeks since the soldier case and Lestrade had checked the bridge every night. He was in the tube station, trying to get to his sister's house for their traditional second-Saturday-night-of-the-month-dinner.

He was bored, waiting for his route to arrive. He started to look around at the people. He saw a head of blond hair that looked familiar.

He didn't really feel like talking, so he didn't walk up to John at that moment. He just watched him.

He watched as John strode toward the lines and stopped just behind the line warning people not to pass. A train went zooming by and John stared straight ahead as his jacket was caught in the breeze and blew around him. His hair blew in the breeze, but John made no effort to step back.

Lestrade took a step towards him.

He could hear another train approaching.

John took a step forward.

Lestrade made an attempt to casually sprint the distance between him and John. He clapped John on the shoulder when he reached him, pulling him back from the ledge leading down to the tracks.

"Hey mate!" he said with false cheer, already planning to abandon his sister for the night. "How are you? Want to go to the pub?"

John stared at him in amazement. It took about a minute before he responded.

"Yeah," he mumbled. "Yeah, sure."

Lestrade started to cheerily chat with John while leading him out of the tube station.

He made a mental note to add the tube station to his nightly bridge check.

OoOoO

Lestrade had known John had a gun of course. Who else could have shot that cabby?

This, however, was not the way Lestrade would have imagined his first time seeing it. And it's definitely not the way he would have wanted to see it.

Lestrade had come to Sherlock's flat when he hadn't answered his phone. They finally have a case the man might deem interesting and he disappears. Bloody Sherlock.

Lestrade had opened the flat door expecting to find Sherlock pacing the floors or lying on the couch in his thinking pose.

Instead, he was treated to the sight of John Watson.

John Watson and his gun.

John stared at him for a while, his finger frozen on where the safety had been clicked off. After a long, silent staring contest between the two, John unfroze and mumbled, "Sherlock's out," before clicking the safety back on and putting the gun down on the coffee table.

Lestrade nodded. Lestrade nodded multiple times. He suspected he looked like a bobble head.

"John…" he said eventually, but was interrupted when Sherlock swept in the door. While Sherlock was blabbering away about something, Lestrade watched John slip out of the room quietly.

Before he left, Lestrade made sure to pick up the gun.

OoOoO

This was Not Good. This was far past a Bit Not Good and into Not Good territory. In fact, it was probably more in Bad territory. Very Bad.

Lestrade stood frozen in the doorway of 221B Baker Street. Donovan, Anderson, and a few other select team members were standing behind him, waiting for him to move. Waiting for the "drugs bust" to begin. Lestrade began to suspect this wouldn't be happening.

John was lying on the couch. Lestrade would suspect he was sleeping, but they had made quite a bit of noise on their way up the stairs.

Also, there was the fact of the empty pill bottle near John's open right hand.

Lestrade finally snapped out of his stupor and yelled for someone on his team to call an ambulance. One of the more efficient officers did while the others began trying to peer around Lestrade to see what was wrong with the flat that would require an ambulance. Quite a lot, in their experience, but none which had ever warranted an actual ambulance call.

Lestrade didn't have time to worry about what the team saw. He quickly ran over to John and knelt beside him. He took John's wrist in his hands.

Oh, thank god. There was still a pulse.

It was a faint pulse, but it was there. He pulled John into the recovery position and settled in to wait, John's wrist held between his fingers.

It wasn't long before the ambulance arrived and John was whisked away. Lestrade quickly followed in his police car.

When he arrived at the hospital, he sat down in the waiting room. He pulled out his phone and opened a new message to Sherlock.

Oh, god. What was he supposed to say?

_Sorry, but I just found your flat mate passed out in your living room._

_When I invaded your house for a fake drugs bust, I found your flat mate had OD'd on his medication._

_The man you love more than anyone else just attempted suicide on your living room couch._

Lestrade finally settled on a simple: _Hospital. Please come. It's John._

Lestrade hoped he would be a while. He had a lot to think about.

It was half an hour before Sherlock showed up and there was still no news on John. Sherlock stared at Lestrade for a while and before he could even open his mouth to deliver his prepared speech, Sherlock paled and fell heavily back into a seat.

He stared up at Lestrade with wide eyes.

"Not John," he said, in a raspy voice Lestrade had never heard before.

Lestrade just nodded slowly.

Sherlock sat in the chair for a few more minutes, staring off into space before he leapt out of his seat and left the hospital.

Lestrade just stared after him.

OoOoO

John was kept under surveillance in the hospital for a week. He was finally released on the terms that someone would keep an eye on him. Lestrade agreed to drive him home the day he was to be released.

Sherlock had been around, but had never actually visited John. Lestrade had even seen him pacing the waiting room a few times, but had never gone in John's room as far as he could tell.

Lestrade arrived at the hospital on the day he was to pick John up, only to discover he was already gone.

Shit.

Lestrade ran out of the hospital and jumped into his car. He quickly called Sherlock.

"Is John with you?"

"What? No," came the confused reply. "I thought you were picking him up today."

"Right," Lestrade said, turning on his car. "I'm coming to pick you up."

"Why?" asked Sherlock. "Where's John?"

Lestrade didn't answer and hung up the phone. He turned on the sirens and made it to Baker Street in record time. Sherlock was already waiting outside the door and jumped in the car when Lestrade pulled up.

"What's wrong?" he asked.

Lestrade pulled away from the kerb, sirens still on, and started heading towards the place he knew John would be.

"John is trying to kill himself. Again."

Lestrade saw Sherlock's mouth fall open in the rear view mirror.

"Again? But why?"

Lestrade thought about sparing Sherlock the guilt and then decided that he deserved it.

"You, I suspect," he said, making a hard right. "You never showed up in hospital after he tried to kill himself, Sherlock. He probably thinks you don't care either way."

There was silence from the back of the car the rest of the way there.

When Lestrade finally pulled up, he saw exactly what he expected. There was the silhouette of John Watson, sitting precariously on the railing of a familiar bridge.

Lestrade got out of the car and leaned against the railing just like before. He stared out at the river.

John didn't glance at him this time. He heard Sherlock come up behind him, but not into John's line of sight.

"I waited two weeks like you said," John started, looking at the water below his dangling feet. "I found the excitement. I found something worth living for. But it doesn't matter. Because they don't care back and they never will."

There was a long silence.

"The time is long overdue, Lestrade," John said. He looked into the older man's eyes. "Please don't blame yourself."

Then he braced his hands on the railing.

Before Lestrade could even make a move, there was a blur wrapping around John and pulling him off the railing.

Sherlock yanked John off the railing and into his arms. He fell to the hard pavement still clutching John. Lestrade suddenly realised that Sherlock was chanting something that sounded suspiciously like the word "no" repeated over and over in rapid succession.

Lestrade watched as John's expression softened from shocked to something else.

And then he watched the soldier finally let the tears fall, wrapped in the embrace of a sociopath.


End file.
